Cultivating TikTok's feel-good aesthetic comes at a cost. Specifically, the cost is sweeping ugly people and poor people under the rug.
The social media company sought to maintain its image by reducing the visibility of poor, overweight, and ugly people on its platform. Photo: Mustafa Murat Kaynak/Anadolu Agency It can be tempting, as many have, to hold up TikTok as some type of incredible content oasis – a relaxing spot of good in a sea of digital bad.
TikTok’s central organ is it’s “For You” page, an algorithmic recommendation feed that users first see when they open the app. Even if you’re never posted anything, followed anyone, or liked a video, you’ll see the page, which is unique for each users and full of videos with hundreds of thousands or millions of likes apiece. Getting featured there can be a rocket to the fragile popularity we call “internet fame”.
These decisions were made because strategists for the company were worried that less superficially attractive videos would scare away new users. ““This kind of environment is not that suitable for new users for being less fancy and appealing,” they wrote. A TikTok spokesperson told the Intercept that the policies are old and no longer in use, if they were ever.
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